This relates in general to Automated Teller Machines (ATM) also known as Automated Banking Machines.
One category of ATM includes machines capable of conducting a wide variety of traditional banking transactions including acceptance of cash and/or checks for deposit, check cashing, and withdrawals/dispensing of cash, also referred to herein as currency or notes. In certain locations globally and especially in certain countries, the daily transaction volume of an ATM can be substantial and may even exceed the physical capacity of the machine to receive documents and/or exhaust the available supply of currency notes available to dispense for withdrawals.
Currency/notes, checks and other sheet materials, generally referred to as documents, that are accepted and/or dispensed by an ATM, are typically housed in containers, such as bins or removeable cassettes, while the documents are stored in the machine. Typically, documents are dispensed from the cassettes and presented by the ATM through an aperture or opening in a user interface, typically in the front facing or top of a housing of the ATM. In some ATM, documents may be accepted through the user interface for deposit and the like and then placed into a cassette. Thus, as cassettes become full or empty, periodically they must be either reloaded or unloaded or removed and replaced with loaded or empty cassettes.
In general, the reload, unload or removal of one or more cassettes in an ATM requires that the normal operation of the ATM be suspended. Also, reload, unload, or removal/replacement of a cassette typically requires personnel to access the ATM through a secured safe portion (chest) of the ATM. For example, personnel may need to access the chest through a locked rear or forward access door(s) to facilitate reload, unload, or removal/replacement of a cassette in the chest. Once the cassettes have been reloaded or unloaded or the cassettes have been removed and replaced, it may then be necessary to reboot or activate the ATM in order to place the ATM back into service.
The reload, or unload, or removal/replacement of cassettes requires documents to be transported to and/or from the ATM. For replenishment, such documents may be preloaded in to cassettes to be taken to the machine or taken to the machine separately and feed into the cassettes at the ATM. For depletion, loaded cassettes may be removed from machine or documents may be dispensed from the machine and taken away separately from the cassettes. While efforts have been made in the design of ATMs, including the cassettes, to minimize opportunities for misuse, fraud, or pilferage, and other precautions have been taken to safeguard the transport of documents, there is always some risk of such events occurring during the handling and transport of such documents. Additionally, it is often the case that during such operations the secured or safe portion may be open or exposed. Therefore, such activities are normally carried out by or in the presence of armed couriers. Often, more than one person is assigned to any task where there is access to documents going to or coming from an ATM. Because numerous individuals may be involved in the reload, or unload, or removal/replacement of cassettes, this is often a time consuming and expensive process. The need to reload, or unload, or remove/replace cassettes periodically is a cost and/or loss to the ATM owner/operator because of the process described above and because the ATM must be either powered down completely or at minimum temporarily disabled from transaction processing.